Preparing for TOP and MKM Prague

It’s been a while since my first and last visit to Prague, Czech Republic, when I attended a RPTQ that I have failed miserably. This time, our playgroup is going for a week long trip, looking to compete on Modern tournaments at both TOP and MKM Series. All is well until I realised that I still have no idea what to play.

TOP is first on the schedule, and I was thinking about playing something proactive, linear and fast, just to get a feel of the metagame. Then I could go on and play a tuned Skred Red or UB Faeries at the MKM tournament. But is that really a good idea?

Larger tournaments are usually represented by all kinds of decks, and my past predictions were never as good as I hoped for. And even if I manage to predict the field correctly, I could still get paired with Ad Nauseam while on Skred Red, or Dredge when playing with Faeries. Bottom line is that I will play one of the decks I enjoy, and all of them are equally capable of winning and losing, but it’s the sideboard that will do the heavy lifting since pairings are out of my control. Also, slower decks means longer games, which is a minus considering both tournaments will be long.

Enter Fish.

Out of all the decks I own (or can build), Merfolk are probably the most consistent one. Sure, Skred Red can eat thru metagame filled with creature decks, and UB Faeries walks over control, but no deck of mine compares with the raw consistency provided by Merfolk. Goblins, Burn and Zoo are probably faster, but fold to the hate easily. Skred Red has a troublesome Combo and Tron match-up, while UB Faeries sometimes just loses to itself (i.e. not drawing the right answer). Bant/UW/Esper Spirits are fun, but I haven’t played it enough to feel comfortable piloting it yet. Don’t let me get started on Bubble Hulk, a deck that I have built but yet to play, and with all the grave hate running around, I’ll skip on it for sure.

This leaves me with my beloved Fish, a deck introduced to me by a friend of mine, and I have fallen in love with it. Sure, they begin to stink after playing it a lot, but submerge (shelve) them for a while and they are as good as new. It’s been a while since I took them for a spin (GP Lille and PPTQ Ljubljana), so they are fresh and ready for conquest. All things considered, I will probably just swim with the Fish at TOP (or rather, to the top), but will try some other deck at MKM for sure (Czech has no sea, so I don’t know about the longevity of Merfolk there). Jokes aside, I love playing Skred, Goblins and Faeries, and there is still time left. In addition to that, I really hope to get a feel for the metagame at the first tournament. But then again, it’s also bold to think I can predict the metagame for MKM from TOP.

By now you could have guessed that I love playing fringe decks (and Merfolk), and Skred Red winning a GP brings it on the radar. Nothing wrong with that, but I loved the fact that people were unaware of the deck, which got me a few free wins here and there. That ain’t gonna happen anymore.

I felt the need to write an article about my preparation in hopes of finding a deck, but it was to no avail. All I did was tell you which decks I can pick, and none of them are really better than the rest. Merfolk has the most game all-around, unless it’s all Affinity and Infect. Than I have to pick Skred or Goblins. But if there are decks that beat my Skred and greenskins, I’ll have to go with Faeries (kills combo and control). And if there are too many Faerie-alike decks, Merfolk is the way. So what have we learnt?